RECIPE BY ISRAEL FRANCO ZUBIAGA, Chef in La Bodeguita de Corralejo
INGREDIENTS (4 people):
• 4 medium aubergines
• 200 g. of semi-cured goat cheese
• 160 g of «almogrote» *
• 120 g of honey and mint vinaigrette *
• salt to taste
• ground black pepper to taste
* Honey and mint vinaigrette, ingredients:
• 50 g of old-style mustard
• 20 g of honey
• 75 g of soft olive oil
• 8 ml of sherry vinegar
• 10 g of toasted hazelnut
• mint to taste (just leaves)
* Almogrote, ingredients:
• 150 g of cured goat cheese
• 1 garlic clove without germ
• 1 spoonful of paprika from La Vera
• 50 g of soft olive oil
• 30 g of «choricero» pepper pulp (dry pepper)
• 1 hot pepper(seedless)
ELABORATION:
We wash and dry the aubergines and place them on a baking tray; We add soft olive oil and table salt on top and bake it at 180ºC for about 30 minutes, depending on the size. They’ll be cooked when they do not offer resistance when pricking them.
While being baked, we make the almogrote, the honey and mint vinaigrette and grate the cured goat cheese that we’ll use to grill.
Once the aubergines are cooked, we peel them keeping their shape, cut them in two halves and preheat the oven to 200ºC, cover the aubergines with the grated cheese and grill them.
ALMOGROTE ELEBORATION:
We mix all the ingredients with the help of a blender until we obtain a homogeneous paste, except for the cheese, which we grate and mix with the pasta with the help of a spoon; if the mixture is too thick we can add more olive oil to bind it; once to taste, we set it aside.
HONEY AND MINT VINAIGRETTE ELABORATION:
Place the hazelnut, the mint leaves and the soft olive oil in a mixing glass and blend; once we have the mixture we add the sherry vinegar, the honey and the old-style mustard, we mix again, add salt to taste and set aside.
PLATING UP:
Once grilled, plate it up and add some hints of almogrote and a splash of honey and mint vinaigrette with the help of pastry bags. Enjoy the dish. Bon Appetite!
NOTES:
• You can buy already prepared «almogrote»
• The cheese to grill can be replaced with a softer or stronger type, you choose.
• For the vinaigrette we can replace the hazelnut with another nut.
